Prestigia, Populus, et Familia— aka, Chapter 8 Work All Bundled Into One Cohesive and Biographical Narrative
To begin, I could not even begin to list all of the different-class people about whom I know or who I know. In other words, I know about and know too many people in different classes than me to even have a simple, all-added-up list. In fact, I come from that kind of background. So, let me begin with my story— in short, anyway (and this is not off topic).
My paternal granddad is John “Jack” Gregory Czarnecki, the first-surviving newborn child and son of his parents (The first child and son— the first Anthony “Tony”, Jr. — died two days after his birth in 1934 or 1935.). After him came my granduncles Francis “Frank” (1940-1985), James “Jim”, and the second Anthony “Tony”, Jr..
Like his brothers and mom, and unlike his dad; he was born in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania into a lower American class. His dad (Tony, Sr.), on the other hand, was a Crypto-Jewish pogrom survivor and assimilationist who came to Sugar Notch via Ellis Island after his parents were outcasted by their family still in Poland Russia. Tony, Sr. also moved from relatively-fair circumstances on the family farm in Lipsk nad Biebrza to life in a rented house on 132 Main (now North Main) Street in Sugarloaf, to considerably-comfortable circumstances as the son of the coalminer who owned 203-207 (excluding 204 and 206) Freed Street in Sugar Notch.
Jack, meanwhile, lived at 203 with his parents and brothers while his paternal uncle Joe lived at 205 and his paternal aunt Alexandria Alice (who was a widow with one son— John, Jr.) lived at 207 (where she also tended to his paternal grandmother— her ailing mother—from March 28 to April 6, 1936). A 1958 graduate of King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, he married the two-year nursing student known Joan Adele Gajdos (Gaydos) on September 23, 1959 at Sugar Notch’s Holy Family Roman Catholic Church.
Joan Adele Gaydos, meanwhile, is the third daughter and middle child of Michael Gaydos, Jr. and Marysia “Mary” Elizabeth née Rusnak. Like her dad and all of her siblings, she was born in Luzerne County. Her mom, on the other hand, was born in Crabtree in Westmoreland County; where her parents, Andrew Stephen Rusnák (of the prominent Jewish Rusnák family in Košice, Slovakia) and Julia née Fosko first settled in America and married each other on July 29, 1905.
Joan, meanwhile, lived at 112 Brown Street in Ashley and only visited 163 Hughes Street in Swoyersville, where Mary had lived and returned to for the birth of her first daughter and child (Helen Margaret Gaydos Wojnar, R.N.; 1930-2006). After Joan converted from Crypto-Jewish Slovakian Byzantine Catholicism to Crypto-Jewish Roman Catholicism, and moved with Jack to Glen Burnie in Maryland; she was no longer the hopelessly-disinherited descendant of Crypto Jews that she had grown up being. She was a mother of four children (one who was sadly miscarried in 1975), the wife of one of the IRS Agents who had served Nixon tax papers, a sister of a RN and Dr. Mary Ann Gaydos at Mansfield State College, and the sister-in-law of an IBM worker (Jim Czarnecki) and a public accountant (Tony Czarnecki, Jr.).
Meanwhile, Jack’s and Joan’s son Gregory “Greg” Matthew Czarnecki came from living at Marley Station Road in Glen Burnie to earning a graduate degree in Maryland. He had married and later divorced Cecilia née Allen, one of eleven (including two sadly-miscarried) children of Loyola University professor Francis Xavier Allen (whose income went into providing for himself and his family) and homemaker Mary Ellen née Pundt (a high-school graduate who had at least four of her children still living at home when Professor Allen died on Thanksgiving Eve of 1974). Greg obviously married economically down to some extent (although Cecilia was working and still works at NASA, though she has an Associate’s and almost a Bachelor’s Degree in Information Systems), and Cecilia married economically up (at least at the time; and to make a long story short, she also married morally down).
In conclusion, I could go on and give you kol hamegillah; but I think that you get the point— that my family is of, and family history involves, all sorts of socioeconomic classes and socioeconomic mobilizations. Meanwhile, I would choose prestige over power and wealth— besides, as has been a hackneyed point, prestige can give one wealth and power. Prestige is also lasting and defines— and sometimes even is or is the result of— one’s legacy whereas wealth and power are fleeting and ultimately meaningless compared to prestige.
To begin, I could not even begin to list all of the different-class people about whom I know or who I know. In other words, I know about and know too many people in different classes than me to even have a simple, all-added-up list. In fact, I come from that kind of background. So, let me begin with my story— in short, anyway (and this is not off topic).
My paternal granddad is John “Jack” Gregory Czarnecki, the first-surviving newborn child and son of his parents (The first child and son— the first Anthony “Tony”, Jr. — died two days after his birth in 1934 or 1935.). After him came my granduncles Francis “Frank” (1940-1985), James “Jim”, and the second Anthony “Tony”, Jr..
Like his brothers and mom, and unlike his dad; he was born in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania into a lower American class. His dad (Tony, Sr.), on the other hand, was a Crypto-Jewish pogrom survivor and assimilationist who came to Sugar Notch via Ellis Island after his parents were outcasted by their family still in Poland Russia. Tony, Sr. also moved from relatively-fair circumstances on the family farm in Lipsk nad Biebrza to life in a rented house on 132 Main (now North Main) Street in Sugarloaf, to considerably-comfortable circumstances as the son of the coalminer who owned 203-207 (excluding 204 and 206) Freed Street in Sugar Notch.
Jack, meanwhile, lived at 203 with his parents and brothers while his paternal uncle Joe lived at 205 and his paternal aunt Alexandria Alice (who was a widow with one son— John, Jr.) lived at 207 (where she also tended to his paternal grandmother— her ailing mother—from March 28 to April 6, 1936). A 1958 graduate of King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, he married the two-year nursing student known Joan Adele Gajdos (Gaydos) on September 23, 1959 at Sugar Notch’s Holy Family Roman Catholic Church.
Joan Adele Gaydos, meanwhile, is the third daughter and middle child of Michael Gaydos, Jr. and Marysia “Mary” Elizabeth née Rusnak. Like her dad and all of her siblings, she was born in Luzerne County. Her mom, on the other hand, was born in Crabtree in Westmoreland County; where her parents, Andrew Stephen Rusnák (of the prominent Jewish Rusnák family in Košice, Slovakia) and Julia née Fosko first settled in America and married each other on July 29, 1905.
Joan, meanwhile, lived at 112 Brown Street in Ashley and only visited 163 Hughes Street in Swoyersville, where Mary had lived and returned to for the birth of her first daughter and child (Helen Margaret Gaydos Wojnar, R.N.; 1930-2006). After Joan converted from Crypto-Jewish Slovakian Byzantine Catholicism to Crypto-Jewish Roman Catholicism, and moved with Jack to Glen Burnie in Maryland; she was no longer the hopelessly-disinherited descendant of Crypto Jews that she had grown up being. She was a mother of four children (one who was sadly miscarried in 1975), the wife of one of the IRS Agents who had served Nixon tax papers, a sister of a RN and Dr. Mary Ann Gaydos at Mansfield State College, and the sister-in-law of an IBM worker (Jim Czarnecki) and a public accountant (Tony Czarnecki, Jr.).
Meanwhile, Jack’s and Joan’s son Gregory “Greg” Matthew Czarnecki came from living at Marley Station Road in Glen Burnie to earning a graduate degree in Maryland. He had married and later divorced Cecilia née Allen, one of eleven (including two sadly-miscarried) children of Loyola University professor Francis Xavier Allen (whose income went into providing for himself and his family) and homemaker Mary Ellen née Pundt (a high-school graduate who had at least four of her children still living at home when Professor Allen died on Thanksgiving Eve of 1974). Greg obviously married economically down to some extent (although Cecilia was working and still works at NASA, though she has an Associate’s and almost a Bachelor’s Degree in Information Systems), and Cecilia married economically up (at least at the time; and to make a long story short, she also married morally down).
In conclusion, I could go on and give you kol hamegillah; but I think that you get the point— that my family is of, and family history involves, all sorts of socioeconomic classes and socioeconomic mobilizations. Meanwhile, I would choose prestige over power and wealth— besides, as has been a hackneyed point, prestige can give one wealth and power. Prestige is also lasting and defines— and sometimes even is or is the result of— one’s legacy whereas wealth and power are fleeting and ultimately meaningless compared to prestige.
